I lived in Cambodia (Africa) for all of 2004 as a nurse, and kept my residency in North Carolina. I was paid by a US company and received a W-2, but the state box just says "XX" instead of "NC" and there are no state wages or withholdings. I know I need to file a Federal return, but I'm not sure if I need to file for state. Any help would be appreciated.

I lived in Cambodia (Africa) for all of 2004 as a nurse, and kept my residency in North Carolina. I was paid by a US company and received a W-2, but the state box just says "XX" instead of "NC" and there are no state wages or withholdings. I know I need to file a Federal return, but I'm not sure if I need to file for state. Any help would be appreciated.

Generally, the fact that you are absent from the US is not sufficient to cancel residency in the last state you lived in before you left the US. So, the general rule is that you will have to file a NC resident income tax return.

However, some states (I don't know if NC is one of them) will allow you to either end your residency or will exempt you from filing if you spend more than a set period of time outside of the state/US. You will have to check NC's rules for who has to file a return to know for sure.

Thanks Ira. Do you know of a good website that I can check on NC's rules? I looked around the Dept of Rev site for awhile, but it wasn't too helpful.

You're right. The instructions for the D-400 return aren't all that helpful. It indicates that it is possible to become a non-resident of NC by establishing legal residence in another state or country<b/> but doesn't explain how to accomplish this to NC DOR's satisfaction.

If your sojourn overseas is not permanent in nature and you intend to return to NC (and still have a home there) then you are probably still considered to be an NC resident and need to file a return.

Your best bet is to contact a tax professional in NC who has expertise in this area and pose the question.

How do I know if North Carolina considers me a nonresident or part-year resident? How do I file?You're a nonresident if: you live in North Carolina and earn income within the state for a temporary period of time and you are a permanent resident of another state or you live outside the state, but receive income from sources in North Carolina.

You're a part-year resident if:you moved into the state and became a resident during the tax year or you moved out of North Carolina and became a resident of another state.

IMPORTANT: When completing Form D-400, part-year residents should not enter the beginning and ending dates of North Carolina residency in the boxes at the top of page 1 of the form (these dates are entered on page 4 of the form). The boxes at the top of page 1 are used only by fiscal year filers to indicate the beginning and ending dates of their tax year. Fiscal year filers do not file on a calendar year basis.

sjfans(Not a tax expert by any means but I am an NC resident so had the page bookmarked.)

When we were charging up to enter the Viet Nam War (I trust that everyone knows approximately where that is), we were told there would be a domino effect if we didn't do something to stop North Viet Nam from taking over South Viet Nam. The domino effect was that Cambodia (next door west to the south) and Laos (next door west to the north) would fall to Communism followed by Thieland followed by the Big Kahuna Indonesia. If you believe this, then our Viet Nam experience may have been a success because only poor Laos is Communist, but our troops apparently don't believe it as they fester over the Viet Nam adventure down to today although it has been over for 30 years, we are now friends with Viet Nam (which remains Communist), and even have an Ambassador there (Our first Ambassador had even been a prisoner there). They are happy to receive our tourists, even previous prisioners of war.

Poor Laos is Communist, but it is one of the poorest countries in the world with few prospects of success even if it wasn't Communist. Cambodia is better off because of tourism related to Bangor Wat ruins.

Yes, we had already seen that. Here's the problem. I'm assuming that motleync was a resident of NC before leaving the country. Generally, once you become a resident of a state, you remain a resident of that state until you can document that you've established residence in a different state. Establishing residence in a different country does not usually terminate state residence. Finally, even if NC allows you to terminate residency by establishing permanent residency in a foreign country, it's not clear that motleync has completed the steps required to establish permanent foreign residency.

Direct questioning of the customer service reps at NC DOR may provide more information, but on issues such as these I prefer going to an experienced tax professional. There are probably some grey areas here and the DOR staff will tell the official position and not the alternative positions.